


I'm Gonna Need Some New Glasses

by bibesties



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Get together fic, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Tumblr Prompt, and a pretty obviously in love bucky barnes, featuring steve pining and not knowing he's doing so, thinkstarbucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2785037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibesties/pseuds/bibesties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky are friends.<br/>They've been best friends since they were young.<br/>They're friends who live together and share an apartment.<br/>They're also friends who occasionally tell the other that they love them.<br/>But that just makes them even better friends, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Gonna Need Some New Glasses

**Author's Note:**

> A completed reply to this prompt: could you do a stucky where steve is the one who realises suddenly that he likes bucky? and set in 1930s/40s? maybe with cuddling? this isn't detailed but i hope you can do it
> 
> (prompt from my now deleted writing prompt blog: thinkstarbucks)
> 
> Also inspired by this post I saw: http://youkilledmyfatherpreparetopie.tumblr.com/post/82055460911/dean-im-turning-in-for-the-night-goodnight  
> (tws for body image and body horror in the link, features a guy with visible red veins on his face or something. idk. supernatural is weird.)
> 
> Copied directly from tumblr, so all mistakes are mine, and of course these two dorks don't belong to me.
> 
> Also, sorry about the random changes between American English and British English, as I'm from the UK I write most of the descriptions and general things how I usually would but change their thoughts and speech and anything in character to American English to be more in character. I hope this makes sense!
> 
> Also x2, I hope that the Steve-needing-new-glasses/Steve-being-blind-to-affection thing isn't really ableist, please call me out if it is and I'll make the necessary changes. I asked a couple of people who use glasses about it and they said it was okay but of course they don't represent everyone.

Picking up a stray sock from the floor, Steve stumbles through the doorway into the bedroom and practically falls onto his bed.

He hears Bucky chuckling softly, and the sound of fabric sliding over skin that means that the other guy is getting ready to go to bed, something that he probably should be doing too.

Although, he is very exhausted.

With good reason, too, as his day involved doing numerous errands for his neighbours (in order to get them some more dollars for the Christmas dinner jar) and at one point he climbed into a tree to help fetch someone’s hat that had landed in the branches, thanks to the ferocious winds that are currently making life hell for everyone in New York.

Steve can hear a strong gust of air now, the low sound of the wind blowing past their apartment, rattling the windows and threatening to break something, which is actually very likely to happen as these are some of the cheapest apartments that Brooklyn has to offer.

He exhales slowly and pushes himself up onto his knees, removing his sweater and putting on his pyjama top before pulling the thick sweater back on over the top of it, and then changing his trousers, doing one half of his body at a time in order to retain as much heat as possible.

Bucky is watching him with one of his tiny smiles as Steve gets his foot tangled up in his pyjama bottoms. Bucky is often looking over at him from his bed with that small smile on his face. It’s natural and kind of comforting, even if he is being humiliated by a pair of trousers.

“Quit it,” Steve grumbles, finally managing to finish getting dressed and he turns off the light and hurriedly crawls beneath the covers, twisting and turning in order to get them warmer. He can hear Bucky rustling around in the bed next to him as he joins in with their winter night ritual of trying to make their beds warm.

“Did you turn off the stove?” Steve asks after a moment of silence from both beds, thinking about his day and then running through his plan for tomorrow.

He hears Bucky sigh, sounding amused. “Yeah, it’s off, don’t worry about it.”

Steve is usually very confident in his abilities to run a household, well, to share an apartment with his best friend; although a kitchen fire a couple of apartments below them has worried him lately. Bucky knows it, and thinks he’s being ridiculous, though Steve can’t help but worry about their safety and the fact that their stove is cheap and second hand.

He turns over in bed, sees the glint of Bucky’s eyes and realises that the other guy has been quietly watching him. He shoots him a smile and can just make out the one he gets in return.

Bucky really does have a nice smile, Steve thinks. It always reassures him.

Steve starts to doze off, feeling his head sink back into the pillow. He really does deserve some sleep, he thinks to himself sluggishly. Everything feels heavy and he can feel his right arm aching from climbing up into branches earlier.

“You get some sleep, Steve, okay?”

Steve makes a grunting sound in response, telling himself that it was his expression of annoyance rather than an embarrassing noise that came from being pulled away from the brink of sleep. “Was gettin’ some sleep before you said that,” he complains, wriggling around in bed noisily to make his point.

“Alright, alright. Night, Stevie.”

He can practically hear the secretly amused smile in Bucky’s words.

“Night, jerk,” he responds, stilling his movements and settling back into his pillow again.

“Love ya,” Bucky says, still squirming around in his bed. It’s the one nearest the window, so the chill is probably still getting to him a bit.

“Yeah, love you too,” Steve replies, words feeling heavy against his tongue as his mind starts to shut off for the night.

There’s a moment of quiet, the air filled with soft breaths and the occasional footstep or voice from one of the surrounding apartments.

Then Steve’s brow creases and his eyes blink open again.

He’s pretty damn confused. Also irritated, as all traces of tiredness seem to have just disappeared, like how his money seems to disappear much too quickly when he’s stocking up on food for the week at the store.

But it’s not food he cares about right now, no, he’s wondering when in the hell he and Bucky started saying _that_ to each other. Bucky had said it casually and so had he, they’d said it naturally, as though stating a fact.

Well, it’s not like he doesn’t love him. Bucky is his closest pal, he’s always been there for him and he’s done a lot to help him over the years. Of course he loves him.

Saying it to each other, though, saying it out loud, well, that—that sounds a bit…

Steve is very confused.

It’s like he has the slow, unhelpful mind of someone who is tired, but his actual need to sleep has just vanished. He’s not sure whether he’s more asleep or alert and it’s irritating him.

“Buck,” he says aloud, letting the word hang in the air for a moment before speaking again, a little louder. “Bucky.”

A noise comes from the other bed, although it’s not distinguishable as any sort of emotion and could very well be a half formed word said in his sleep. Steve waits for a second. A moment later there is another noise, and this one sounds more like it has a questioning tone.

“What… what do ya mean by that?” Steve asks, turning over to see Bucky’s eyelids fluttering open, the shape of his face just visible in the moonlight coming through the curtain-less window.

Bucky makes another rough, questioning noise, sounding a bit like the stray cat that sometimes sits on their fire escape and makes noises until Steve gives in and feeds it scraps. Kinda… adorable, Steve figures.

“Sayin’… you know. _Love ya_.” Steve clarifies, too eager for an explanation to bother being embarrassed by the whole thing. Besides, it’s not like he cares about men expressing their feelings for other men, it’s natural for people to tell other people how they feel, he figures. He’s lived in a queer neighbourhood long enough to become pretty open minded about things that people do that aren’t as bad as people make them out to be.

“Dunno,” Bucky replies after a pause, voice rough from tiredness. It feels like it slices through Steve’s brain and stops him from thinking for a second. Weird for his voice to have that sort of affect, Steve muses, though it’s not the first time. He feels all sorts of things around Bucky, but he’s gotten used to it over the years. It’s just natural now, something he pays no mind to.

“S’not like I’m complaining.” Steve quickly adds, thinking about how he supposes he’d be kinda sad not to hear Bucky tell him that again. It’s nice, affirming their closeness and friendship.

Bucky makes another noise that Steve can’t quite define as meaning anything in particular. He hears and faintly sees the other man push himself up in bed, probably up on one elbow, Steve thinks to himself, imagining how he’d look as he’s sketched it a good few times. He’s often sketching Bucky, after all, he is the person that he sees the most; it makes him the most obvious option for him to draw.

“Oh?” Bucky responds, making Steve feel like he should explain something further, although he can’t for the life of him figure out what.

Steve goes quiet for a moment. “Yeah?” he says back, probably sounding as confused as he feels.

“Okay.” Bucky’s voice sounds oddly flat, and Steve hears him move around under his covers again, presumably going back to sleep.

Well, that’s that, his question has been answered. However Steve now feels like he does have something to explain further, as though the conversation hasn’t really ended. He’s got no idea what Bucky is expecting him to say, or what he’s expecting himself to say, though. Maybe he should stop thinking so damn hard.

“Could you say it again?” Steve finds himself asking.

He hears the rustling next to him stop, and then there’s some more rustling and suddenly Bucky is by his side and pushing him closer to the wall as the taller guy squeezes into the bed next to him.

“Love you,” Bucky murmurs, pressing up against his side and filling the small space with warmth that Steve is very grateful for. He hadn’t realised how cold the space had been until it had been replaced with the heat from Bucky’s body. Every part of Steve’s body tingles for a moment as Bucky speaks and his fingers brush over his body. Must be from the sudden warmth or something, Steve figures.

“What’re you doin’?” Steve asks, confused but nevertheless sliding to the edge of the bed to make room for the other man.

“Figured if you love me too then you won’t mind me sharin’ your heat,” Bucky explains, and Steve can feel the smile on his lips as they press against his shoulder, the taller man’s body curling around his. He’s already feeling a lot warmer; he can feel the heat creep up his neck and onto his face.

Steve just stops himself from exclaiming at that, as the last few words sound for a moment like a euphemism. Instead he presses his fingertips and toes up against Bucky’s arms and legs to prove that he hasn’t got all that much heat to share. Bucky knows that he’s almost always cold anyway; it’s a bit weird for him to come and share his bed for warmth, though it must be so cold by the window that he’s gotten desperate.

“Jesus! I ain’t puttin’ up with that, turn around,” Bucky tells him, pushing away his freezing limbs playfully and attempting to gently move him to face the wall.

“My bed, my rules,” Steve points out, refusing to be pushed around and instead he wickedly presses his icy fingertips right up against Bucky’s jaw and laughs as the other man almost falls out of bed as he shouts out and pushes away.

After a while they compromise and settle into a position where they’re both sort of facing each other, Steve’s hands curled up towards himself and no longer causing any distress.

Steve is just ducking his head to avoid getting Bucky’s hair in his mouth when the other man speaks up again. “You gonna say it back then, or not?”

“Huh?” Steve has just started to slowly sink back into feeling sleepy and he’s not sure he knows what Bucky is talking about.

“That you, you know, love me, or whatever,” Bucky responds.

Oh. That.

Steve still feels… odd about that. He wants to say something about it but he’s still not sure what he should be saying, what he wants to explain, so he’s not too keen on bringing it back up again.

So thank God Bucky did that for him.

_Wonderful._

“I mean, you did start it,” the other guy continues. “So it’s only fair,”

“I didn’t. Did I?”

Bucky looks up from where he’s been resting his head against Steve’s arm and shoots him a look. Steve knows that it’s one of those looks that mean that he’s done something wrong, or probably just something ridiculous.

“Yeah. You said it one night, I said it back, and we’ve been continuing since then.”

Steve brings a hand up to scratch at his neck, feeling a bit shocked at how he hasn’t noticed that he’s been saying it until tonight. He’s a hell of a lot more oblivious than he thought. It’s kinda worrying.

“Jeez, you really are bad at noticing things, ain’t ya?” Bucky comments. There’s a tiny smile on his face again although Steve isn’t sure if it’s real or not.

He supposes he has been bad if he’s only just noticed what he’s been saying every night. In his defence, it did seem ordinary, so he’s probably just not seen a need to pay attention to it, or something. Maybe there’s just a lot of things he hasn’t noticed.

His forehead creases into a frown as he thinks about that.

He thinks about the funny feelings he gets, the way that he watches Bucky a lot when he’s daydreaming, how he focuses on Bucky’s different smiles, how his sketchbooks are filled with the face of his best friend.

Yes, there are a lot of things that he hasn’t noticed.

Until now.

Steve looks down at Bucky. He’s still got that flicker of a smile on his lips, although when he meets his gaze Bucky looks unsure, his eyes narrowed more than usual.

“I need to go and see Doctor Rothman as soon as possible.” Steve comments.

Bucky’s eyes narrow even further. “What?”

“I gotta get my eyes checked. I think I need some stronger glasses if I’ve been missing so much.”

Bucky’s expression relaxes and he nudges Steve’s side, his smile becoming more natural.

“I think… I think there’s been something in particular that I’ve not been… I think I’ve not picked up on… damnit.” Steve shakes his head as he breaks off. He knows Bucky. He knows him quite well and he really hopes that his thoughts are correct on this occasion. “Can I kiss you?”

Bucky’s eyes widen more than Steve thinks he’s ever seen. He really is enjoying watching his friend.

Bucky nods.

Steve leans down and kisses him.

It’s natural.

**Author's Note:**

> _“I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?” _― Maya Angelou__


End file.
